I had been wanting to try this for some time and finally got around to adding it to an order. I'm certainly glad I did!

The presentation in my tin was one large two ounce cake that was an almost uniform brownie-like color with just the occasional lighter strand here and there. It broke apart with ease and I rubbed out the entire brick to store in a mason jar at my tobacco cabinet. I laid out a pipeful to dry for a few minutes even though it felt just about right from the tin.

After airing for about 30 minutes, I packed my first bowl without problem and proceeded to fire it. It took to match well after the first false light and stayed lit to the bottom of the bowl. No bite was experienced. The flavors are fantastic! The Virginia, Perique, and Cavendish all get along well. The Turkish really rounds out the profile adding a rich, tangy note. The Cav is superior and reminds me a bit of the Cav that Dunhill uses. A natural sweetness from Virginia and Cav was balanced by a light sourness from the Perique and Turkish. Overall, one of the most pleasurable and unique smokes that I have had in quite some time. Nicotine is a solid medium with the occasional drift into Med-strong.

This is a nice everyday smoke for me. It has the unique quality of being a "set and forget" that will not get in the way of what you want to do. It also serves the smoker who wants to relax and comtemplate the smoke as the complexity is there if close attention is what you wish to give it.

I can see a couple of dozen tins of this on my next order. It should age very gracefully and be better at five years. We shall see. Cheers!

WOW…WOW, I've been smoking a pipe for 40 plus years and worked in 2 pipe shops. I tried mostly all tobacco's available. Capt. Earl's Honor blend is the BEST VaPer blend on the market for me. I love all of their Cake tobacco's The combo of these tobacco's are very tasty and satisfying to smoke. I'm so surprised that there are not more reviews on this one and Hermits. All of you pipester out there owe it to yourself to get this and store it up for future days. “J” is looking down on all of us Hermit fans from heaven with a big smile. God bless him may he rest in peace knowing he did a fine job in blending his fine tobacco's for us to share. Please give this a try. I know you will enjoy this as much as I do. A very HIGHLY RECOMMENDED blend and thanks to Louise and C&D (the Best tobacco blenders in the world) for keeping Hermit going. Others that are wonderful are as follows: Private Stock, Mystic blend, Night watch, Stimulus package, Ten Russians, C&D'S Bow legged Bear, Kajun Kake, Tuskegee Airman and Sunday Picnic and if you want an aromatic, Altumn Evening is to best aromatic for me. T.J.

The Hermit blends have an interesting presentation. They are pressed together in two oblong bricks and packed in a tin that the same size and shape as the GLPease tins. Interestingly, the tins are also dated on the bottom using the exact same stampings that GLPease employs. Perhaps they are blended/packed by the same company?

There is no need to rub it out, as with a flake. The tobacco can be easily crumbled from the brick and into the pipe. The blend is mostly ribbon-cut red virginia. There are some light brown pieces (I assume the cavendish and Turkish) and I assume the light touches of nearly black are the perique. The perique touch is light. The cavendish is only slightly apparent; along with the Turkish it smooths out the peppery note of the perique. It has a little more body and stength than most medium Viginia/Perique blends. The Turkish adds richness and smoothness, adding an interesting variation to the VA/Perique theme.

This high-quality tobacco needs virtually no relights, and burns to a fine grey ash. I've smoked this in a large Peterson Sherlock Holmes bulldog and a medium Sasieni 4-dot canadian.

I will order this again, as it's an interesting change of pace from my usual VA/Perique staples. But the cost with shipping is a little prohibitive: $36 for 3 assorted 2-ounce tins, postpaid. You can order it here: http://pipestyle.com/

If it were available for less at my local tobacconist I would buy it more often. This is a fine blend, but it's competing with my favorites from the U.K. and GLPease, and costs considerably more.

You can smoke a dozen VA/Per blends from around the world and never find anything like this. That alone warrants 4 stars. Any lover of virginias knows how hard it can be to find something new or unique. If you are used to smoking McClelland type virginias or any number of VA flakes, this will definitely be new. As for unique, well, just read on.

This is packaged, as many have noted, in a crumble cake form. While such a presentation may exist from other companies, I have yet to encounter it. Gawith, for example, offers plugs, and this is nothing like that at all. These crumble cakes do indeed crumble, and this again offers a unique, and pleasant, packing and smoking experience. It packs easily, with a little tap on the side of the bowl. It burns readily and evenly so long as it is on the dry side. It burns, in fact, very well, much easier than tobacco of a similar cut that I have tried.

The flavor also sets this apart. It offers copious smoke with a rich, natural tobacco flavor. The cavendish offers just a hint of sweetness, along with the virginias, and adds complexity. Overall it is rich and not monotone if smoked slowly. I think of the overall experience as offering a "dry" smoke, both in flavor and smoking characteristics, but this is an oversimplification which does not do the blend justice. I have not found this to have any bite at all, nor have I found it to be a hot smoke. One of my favorites, especially in a really good smoking pipe.

My sample is just over one year old. Upon opening, an overwhelming molasses scent makes it difficult to resist taking a bite. This is not a broken flake, or a crumble cake, but a very dense plug composed of relatively coarse ribbons. It is impossible to break off and must be sliced with a knife. So, technically a cake because it is made from cut leaf, but behaves like a hard plug.

If not rubbed out, it will require frequent re-lights. Very mildly sweet, but at times has a nutty flavor, and at times is rather harsh. Bites like a mad dog. Burns very hot. The flavor is strong, but boring and lacking depth. The nicotine is strong. Unfortunately, the best part of the experience is the scent in the tin.

I'm giving it a second star just due to peer pressure. I wouldn't buy it again, but I will not throw it out either.

Best sliced off thinly with a very sharp knife, fully rubbed out, and in a larger pipe. A churchwarden stem helps to cool the smoke.

The tobacco is presented inside the tin in the form of two pressed blocks that must be prepared before smoking. This blend smokes cool and smooth and the tobacco flavor is relatively homogenous and uniform. These positive traits aside, this blend doesn't quite work for me and I have a few reservations. The overall flavor can be a little bland and flat tasting and quite earthy; there's not enough sweetness and there is a disagreeable bitterness that often intrudes and detracts. Regardless of its uniformity, I believe that the tobacco proportions and/or the selection of tobacco components are not quite right--at least for my tastes. I am fickle about this blend--sometimes I can enjoy it a little, but at other times I just do not care for it.

Upon opening the tin I found a little square cake of tobacco that looked like a brownie. It smelled great, like a good virginian. The cake was drier and crumblier than most other cakes/flakes I have tried. On the tin they call it a "crumble cake" and that is a good description.

It is easy to break up and breaks up into fairly even peices, there is no "dust" that often occurs with other cakes/flakes. Once it is broken up, I noticed that it seemed a bit dry. I was dubios.

I smoked my first few bowls in a tall Radice.

It lit well and produced nice, white, dense smoke. Strong taste of virgina and possibly some burley, but not too strong. Good tobacco taste. Does not smoke wet and soapy as cake/flake tobacco often does for me.

Good strength and consistant taste all the way to the bottom of the bowl.

For me, this is excellent tobacco. I plan on smoking it alot in the future.

When I first tried this tobacco, it was at the Hermit table at the NYPC's show. It knocked me out with it's strong hit of nicotine! It also was very peppery and spicy. I was immediately intriged. Here was a natural virginia with perique that really satisified my taste buds for a potent virginia blend. The sample i tried was fully rubbed, but when i popped my first tin, it was pressed...in other words, a crumble cake. Preparation for a bowl can thus be a little messy, one should take care in rubbing or will result in tobacco dust. After numerous bowls, i also found it wise to leave some chunks to load into the bowl first, to provide a platform for loading the rest of the bowl. That way, you will not draw the smaller particles into your mouth. That said, you will be rewarded with a delicious smoke that gets stronger as you down the bowlful. It amazed me that it gives off volumes of thick smoke with very little effort. I also recommend not smoking on an empty stomach. It is now one of favorite virginia smokes in my almost exculsive virginia tobacco rotation! This one's a keeper!

The tobacco is presented as a single kake, rather than the way Bengal Slices and Hearth and Home's Ten to Midnight arrive: slithers of kake. It's medium brown in colour, with some lighter and darker spots, and a touch too moist. It takes quite a firm hand to crumble it; I twist and snap the kake into pieces then rub them in between my hands over the kitchen work surface, and then I allow some time to air.

Considering this contains Perique and Turkish, which can be a bit prone to cause the smoke to be overly sharp, it's a very well rounded taste: I get some good notes from both the Perique and Turkish, but also a drop of honey from the Cavendish, and a slight touch of Virginia-hay in the background. The temperature of the smoke sits about in the middle, and it doesn't bite me even if I really put strain into my puffs. Providing it's been given enough time to abate the moisture content it gives a good burn, but without an airing it will use a lighter full of fuel for one bowl!

I like the room-note, albeit a lot of folks would probably find it too strong, and the nicotine's easily more than medium.

Single brick of pressed medium brown and a tin nose of red VA mixed with potting soil, with a far background of some kind of spice rack scent. Not terribly pleasant aroma, but I've smelled worse and enjoyed them.

Very simple to crumble this cake - no knife required, not even a fingernail. Loaded easily and stayed lit. Flavor was very full-bodied but not overly strong, particularly in nicotine content where it was decidedly medium. Notable about this one was the room note, which can best be described as indescribably horrible. Smelling this in the room would make the unsuspecting think that a furnace had blown, or the oven. Not a smell that's the least bit comforting to a homeowner, let's put it that way. The flavor was red Virginia tang melded with a heavy perique pepperspice and some oriental. I did not notice any Cavendish and certainly nothing resembling sweet. This was a robust, almost feral tobacco taste with a rough, coarse texture. Kind of cigar-like in a way. If someone wanted a blend that could be described as simply "tobacco-y" but had problems with burley, this might be one to reach for. Not very complex, but pretty singleminded of purpose... like a tiger! I finished the tin but can't do better than 2.5 stars for this - can't even round up. Just too unrefined for my personal tastes. But one that might make for some interesting blending experiments.

Wowzers! This stuff is great! Opened the tin a few months ago, smoked a bowl and jarred it. The first bowl from the fresh can had a very heady, thick and oily smoke. Almost too much to enjoy, but I am a persistent son of a bitch....

I recently opened the jar and loaded a pipe with some crumbles from the cake and set it ablaze. To my amazement, this blend has become a new favorite! The periqey goodness coupled with the tangy Virginias and the Turkish to soften it up is rounded out with cavendish to add just a touch of sweetness to the finish.

Being a cigar smoker, this blend has plenty of flavor and nicotine to satisfy the toughest! Just ordered two more pounds....

Pipe Used: Several Peterson Briars

Age When Smoked: 18 months

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

Similar Blends: Oak Alley, but a bit sweeter. I smoked them side by side for the comparison..

If there is Perique in this blend its a very small amount. Other choice tobaccos add real complexity to the blend so there is a lot of flavor- more than i find with VP blends or with straight Virginias.

Lost of smoke production and very dry smoke- no bite at all.

My two tins both came ready to smoke so no real drying time required.

Packaged in a small plug which is similar to lots of C&D plugs .

I think the description is spot on as as coming from a lot of English / Lat forward blends one can get used to lots of flavor with minimal effort.

This blend has lots of flavor with almost no effort and I can just puff away - easy.

Would be a 4 star for me but its tends to get dull in the final part of the bowl.

That aside I would reckon those that like VP blend but are sensitive to lots of Perique may like this blend.

The previous reviewer is right..this is rather unique. It is a crumble-cake style tobacco. I don't know about others, but I get a bitter taste from this as part of the flavor profile. I rather like the tobacco, but I don't like the bitter component.

I like this one so much that I emailed Craig Tarler to tell him so. It not complex but it's full of great VaPer flavor without being cloying or overwhelming. I'm usually overly sensitive to nicotine content but, strangely, considering some of the other reviewer's comments, this one didn't bother me at all. It's a little too heavy and too expensive for an everyday smoke for me but I'll surely be buying more of it including a tin ot two to set aside to see how it responds to age.

I have no idea how old it is as there's no code stamped on the tins....however the one I opened was bone, dusty dry and smelt very faintly leathery with a hint of faded richness.

I thought I'd get the tobacco out of the very small tin...it really was rammed in; only to find that the tin has rusted on the inside at the base and the last quarter of the tobacco was spoilt. This is the second tin that I have found to kind of rot from the inside (the other being a McClelland). There was absolutely no sign on the outside that there was rust or any chemical reaction going on with the can.

I have set the remaining tobacco to rehydrate and will review in due course. I really only post this to give you a warning about the possibility of you getting a spoilt tin. I might up the stars a bit after I've got the tobacco smokeable.

I could never smoke this tobacco everyday, it is simply too strong. It is nice every once and a while. It has the body of a cigar and the taste of a very strong Virgina. The second half of the bowl is the best part the VA's start to sweeten up and the Perique starts to take on a spicy note, very well balanced but too strong for my taste.

Honor Blend is a very satisfying smoke, but satisfying like a cigar. It has a strong presence to both the smoker and those in the room. It starts with a distinct cigar-like quality to its taste, aroma, and body. By the middle of the bowl, the fullness lessens to a degree. The sweetness of the red virginia and cavendish does not emerge until the last half of the bowl, and it is about this time that I needed to be more careful in my technique--slowing down to avoid it getting too hot. This a stout, non-latakia blend--stouter than I like for an everyday blend, but I'll be looking for that open tin on a hot summer night or a cool Sunday morning (these are cigar moments for me). One note: I find it easy to pack Honor Blend too tight, so I try to pack looser than I normally would for the medium ribbon cut. Overall rating: B-, special occasion smoke, room note very earthy.